Hi.I have an HP500, laptop. 1gb RAM and 60g HDD.I'm using Linux Mint 4.0 but this problem happens with Ubuntu also.Every once in a while the computer just holds for few seconds. when looking on the system monitor bar I saw its indicating 100% CPU for I/O Wait.after using the "top" command in terminal I saw that whenever it happens some process calls ata/0 is showing up in the list. when it goes down, the system is back to normal (with a second delay or something).

Hope you'll find time.It has to be hardware issue, because on the other occasions everything works fine.and it's annoying to wait few second every once in a while (especially when I want to show off with my linux Mint )thank you for your time.

Most modern versions of UNIX report the percentage of time the CPU spends in each of four states. These are %System State, %User State, %Wait I/O and %Idle. The first two are reasonably straightforward - the CPU is actually busy and working in those states, either executing the code of user processes, or executing UNIX kernel code on behalf of user processes usually as a result of system calls. %Idle is also pretty easy to understand - the machine has 'nothing to do' and what you are seeing there is the percentage of time it spends in the Idle Process, a do-nothing loop which soaks up unused processor cycles. The fourth state is also an idle one, but it's one which has been forced on the machine. %Wait I/O is time in which the CPU could have been doing useful work, but all of its active processes are waiting for I/O operations to complete. This enforced idle time is degrading the ability of your system to do useful work, and should be avoided. Measured over reasonable periods (5-15 minutes), a %Wait I/O figure consistently above 10% is of concern. If you see this sort of thing, you will need to identify any disk drives which may be bottlenecks, i.e. those with high utilizations (> 40%). From this you see that if the hard drive (or CD/DVD) works hard you may have this problemYou have ICH6 a reasonably well working Intel chip and I have not found anything indicating what your problem might be.Try to see if there's a system in the madness - if you are doing something particular when this happens

first - thanx for the informative answer.second, the only thing I saw was that a second before that starts to happen processes like ata /0 and other /0 are showing up in the "top" command in the terminal.Is it a useful information or should I try to see what cause it?

Well, depending on how much noise your hard drive makes, you can probably hear it. Maybe a slight click and a rising frequency whirring sound as the motor spins up the drive.

I'll tell you what I am thinking. As a power saving feature, if the drive is not needed for a period of time the head is parked and the power is cut off to the drive. As your ram fills up or the kernel needs information from the drive, power is reapplied to the drive and it spins back up so it can be accessed. The system can, to some extent, forecast when the drive will be needed and spins up or restarts the drive so it can be accessed. It is possible that the ata controller is not anticipating the need for spin up properly, or that the drive is slow spinning up because of a drive motor going bad or a spindle dragging in a bearing. The cpu then has to wait for the drive to spin up before it can move information into or out of ram. If I had to guess, I would say it is probably a drive problem. It is more likely that than the controller.

Of course I could be way out in left field too.

Fred

Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over and each time expecting a different result.

Democracy is 2 wolves and a lamb voting on the menu. Liberty is an armed lamb protesting the electoral outcome. A Republic negates the need for an armed protest.

It seems right to me. although, the HDD is very quite and I can't hear him doing some horrible sounds.But, if this is the problem...what can I do?? can I change something in the power manager? or someplace else?

Yes there is a command sequence to change the spin up. The problem is I don't know it off by heart. I am going to have to look it up.... which will take a few min. Plus, I ate breakfast very early this morning and need something to eat. I am diabetic. I will go eat and when I come back if someone hasn't already shown you how I'll look it up and tell you.

Sorry, but you will just have to be patient with me.

Fred

Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over and each time expecting a different result.

Democracy is 2 wolves and a lamb voting on the menu. Liberty is an armed lamb protesting the electoral outcome. A Republic negates the need for an armed protest.

Be warned hdparm is very powerful and can destroy your disk. The setting given will not - it will make the drive spin down less frequentlyThere is a lengthy topic about this in the forum, but I don't find it right now. It's titled something like "Ubuntu destroys laptop hard drives " but not exactly that

OK. thank you Husse and Fred I'll try that and let you know.I remember I came across something like "...destroying your HDD" and cheked my drive for cycles - it was OK.but I'll try that line end see what is the results.

Let us know what happens... for sure. If my theory is correct, the problem should almost go completely away. you will see a shorter battery life though.

If this seems to solve the problem that tells me that the disk drive is going bad. I don't know how old it is but notebook drives are not known for their reliability. If you have a lot of data on that drive I would suggest you start backing it up.

Fred

Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over and each time expecting a different result.

Democracy is 2 wolves and a lamb voting on the menu. Liberty is an armed lamb protesting the electoral outcome. A Republic negates the need for an armed protest.

OK.after showing some good signs, it seems that we didn't find a solution to my problem.The laptop was good for few hours but it seems like after few hours (or maybe after screensaver was first activated) the ata/0 process is back to hold my laptop for few seconds.Now, I have two ideas:1. its heat related. maybe when the computer is hotter the power manager hangs him (or something like that).2. its screen saver related. after first activating, something is changed and we're back to ata/0 holding things.